Des Plaines chips in to help bar and grill come to Metropolitan Square

June 07, 2013|By Jonathan Bullington, Chicago Tribune reporter

The Metropolitan Square development in downtown Des Plaines on Thursday, April 7, 2009. A new bar and grill plans to open in Metropolitan Square with some help from the city. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune) (Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune)

A new bar and grill plans to open in Des Plaines this fall, and city officials have pledged $80,000 to ensure the business is a successful addition to a once-struggling downtown development.

City officials said the $80,000 will pay for a small portion of the $712,000 in capital costs needed for the bar and grill to open at 1427 Market Street in the vacant space formerly occupied by the Jimmy Buffet-themed Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant, which closed in 2011.

"The city is asked to help fill empty vacancies in Metropolitan Square, and here we have fantastic way of doing that," said Ald. Michael Charewicz, 8th.

The bar and grill will contribute $312,000 toward capital costs, city officials said, and Metropolitan Square owners World Class Capital Group -- which acquired the shopping center in May 2012 after a foreclosure proceeding -- will kick-in $300,000 toward the project.

Few original tenants remain from the time when city officials marked the official completion of Metropolitan Square in 2007. But leases on seven existing tenants have been renewed or extended, according to city documents, and a new 12,000-square-foot gym is also expected to open in September, said Matt Kurucz, asset manager with World Class Capital Group.

Tap House Grill has locations in seven Chicago suburbs—including St. Charles and Highwood—and an eighth is scheduled to open in Palatine in October, city officials said. Owners Scott Ward and Mark Zych have signed a 10-year lease in Des Plaines, with two, five-year renewal options.

"We look at ourselves as a Main Street restaurant," Ward told aldermen. "We've had a tremendous growth rate as an organization over the last seven years."

Half of the city's contribution will come from its business assistance program, and the other half will come from the existing tax increment financing, or, TIF, district in which Metropolitan Square is located, officials said.

TIF districts essentially freeze for a certain amount of time the property-tax revenue generated in the district, money that is distributed to various taxing bodies. Property-tax revenue collected above the cap is put in the TIF fund, which can then be used for certain projects designated under state law and related to redevelopment of that district.

After assisting Tap House Grill and performing downtown streetscape improvements, the TIF balance will be left at $2.1 million, said the city's finance director, Dorothy Wisniewski.

City officials estimate that Tap House Grill could generate about $294,000 in food, beverage and sales tax revenue in five years. But a built-in safety net, called a "claw back" clause, requires Tap House Grill to pay back all of -- or a portion of -- the city's investment if the bar and grill closes within the first five years of operation.